It has been a long time coming. Ever since I saw the movie Waterworld in 1995, I have been waiting for an apparatus to come along that could turn urine into drinkable water. Oh, Kevin Costner, are you a ruggedly handsome movie star, or a prophet? Astronauts aboard the International Space Station started drinking their own pee this week, and President Kennedy’s Space Race has truly been won.
Kevin "Nostradamus" Costner in Waterworld
“But wait,” you say, “I want to drink water made from my pee, but I’m not an astronaut. What can I do?” Well, fear not, faithful reader, for there is a way for you to get water-pee right here on Earth. At NASA’s Mission Control in Houston, TX, the ground support team raised their own glasses of water-pee in a toast when the astronauts took there first sip. That means that NASA has an Earth-based pee-to-water system in Texas.
NASA has a long history of creating new technologies to be used in space. They created the materials that make up the scratch-resistant lenses found in modern eyeglasses. Water filters found in many home-purification systems (like the Brita pitcher) were based on predecessors to the pee-to-water system. And, most importantly, they developed the memory foam that allows you to jump up and down on a Tempur-Pedic bed without spilling your glass of wine.
Impressive. But not as impressive as turning pee into water.
Let’s hope it’s only a matter of time before the pee-to-water machine hits the market. It will pretty much sell itself, too. Imagine going to Walmart and seeing shelves packed with products with names like, “P-2-O” and “Urine For A Treat!” If you’re looking for something classier, you could always go to Brookstone and find a massage chair that will take your urine and turn it into water that is conventiently dispensed from a spigot above a cupholder. You could watch football without moving for 8 hours, and still stay hydrated!
Is there one man behind this marvelous invention? A modern-day Jesus who can turn pee to water with a wave of his hand? I do not know. All press coverage about the pee-to-water machine attribute it to NASA as an agency, not to one particular man. How noble of him/her. To toil in obscurity, to allow people to drink their own pee, to never claim the mantle of fame he/she so rightly deserves. Were we all so virtuous, the world would be a much better place.
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I guess that was good idea its like recycling but we must think that before we do that we must wait for the result of test of doing that thing and our water must never be contaminated by urine.